Chamillionaire Gets Real
Earlier this week, there were reports coming from online publications that a 2 million dollar house in Kingwood belonging to Chamillionaire was foreclosed on. Who cares, right?
Chamillionaire did. In fact, he jumped right into the studio and recorded a venomous 6- minute rant about his circumstances. Go ahead and press play and come back to this.
Backing up for a minute, Chamillionaire’s “Venom” album is way overdue, and fans have been chomping at the bit for some time. When Cham’s online forum was axed in January, fans worldwide started their own forums to discuss the artist and his upcoming album.It killed me that the forum was canceled, because I was pretty active on it in an attempt to get Chamillionaire to follow me on Twitter. In fact, I went to his concert at The House of Blues in Houston holding up this big-ass poster board. (Thanks to James Beck for the tickets/photography.)
The song you’re listening to promotes a live U-Stream video that he posted overnight. He explained on Twitter (and on the track), that the idea is to debunk each and every rumor that’s going around concerning his financial situation.
It started off with a promotional video that showed a bit of concert footage. I was very amused to see the camera pan across Houston’s House of Blues audience with my “Follow @GunsandTacos” poster board in clear sight. Hell yeah.
Chamillionaire sat on a nice couch with a large aquarium behind him. I couldn’t wait to hear the guy go off on Perez Hilton and TMZ. Surprisingly, he explained that he has remained a positive person throughout his career, and that he wished no ill will toward anyone (even though the lyrics you are listening to describe him putting Perez into a fetal position).
He explained in the broadcast that he wanted to discuss three things: Church 101, Business 101, and Life 101. I figured he wasn’t really going to teach any college courses, so I kept listening. Chamillionaire’s real name is Hakeem Seriki, and his family is from Africa. You could see that he was a bit distressed, and there wasn’t much humor in the delivery of his words. Hakeem is no stranger to mass media. Earlier this year, for example, reporters concocted a story that he was eating dinner with a prostitute in NYC, who turned out to be his publicist Nancy Byron.
He went on to summarize the situation with the mansion. Basically, after the market crash, he was paying more toward the house than its actual value, and he decided to write it off as a loss and move on. “I was pouring money into a house I was never at.”
Reinforcing his reasons for letting the house go, he dropped a bomb. Though he hadn’t publicized the fact to the media, he explained that he had a son, Xavier, on March 14. Apparently, this created a big mishap at a Denver show where fans maintain ill will due to to his absence (though they didn’t know it was due to the birth of Xavier). Cham’s absence was severely mishandled by the venue and compounded by a one-armed promoter. Hakeem went further and explained a cryptic tweet that he sent out that night. After witnessing his child’s birth, he tweeted, “I can see clearly now.”
Frequenting between emotion and stolidity, he went into more somber news about the health of his mother that he learned on the same day as his child’s birth. Again, this was news that he had kept quiet about until now. He expressed the importance of family, pointing to Paul Wall‘s relationship with his mother.
He had full control of the U-Stream session, typing in promos for short breaks. To quell rumors about inactivity on the upcoming Venom album, he played a song from on his laptop featuring members of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, which he later explained was culled from the record.
Ties with his record label, Universal ,were explained in detail including some of his contract terms showing that transparency was his game. He acknowledged the impatience of his fan base by encouraging fans, “If you have a problem, talk to Universal.” Some tax rumors were crushed with this simple statement:
“Me and Uncle Sam are cool.”
I was expecting an all-out tirade against the media. I instead heard a positive and sobering perspective from a guy who has been under a microscope for some time, and made a brave decision to look it in right in the face and take his case straight to his fan base. Chamillionaire obviously didn’t want to show his audience his soft side, but he aced it. Nothing was scripted about the frank discussion of the spot he is in.
We’ve all seen media attention destroy people, but Hakeem stepped up to the plate and reinforced that he’s the one in charge of this operation. Even before hearing the U-Stream circuit, listening to Chamillionaire’s 6-minute impromptu performance written in one angst-ridden day sealed the deal for me.
Oh, and just in case Chamillionaire reads this- Follow me on Twitter already.
-@GunsandTacos
***UPDATE*** Chamillionaire is now following me on Twitter. WIN.
finally, good for u, i dint know chamillionaire still had fans
.-= Zeus´s last blog ..Artists and Alter-Egos =-.
’bout time. everyone should follow you! big up to you and cham. love the blog. peace.